Download Games Roundup

Newsflash! Games are pretty good, aren't they? The fact that the BBC's Panorama has taken approximately three decades to work out what some of us sussed out the first time we clapped eyes on an arcade machine in the early eighties is investigative journalism at its most biting. In other news, food is pretty tasty, and some people eat too much of it.

In fairness, some people are just plain stupid and do things to excess, but is that the fault of videogames and the people that make them? Should we be encouraging them to make them less entertaining so that we can go back to smashing up bus stops for kicks? I don't know about you, but I've got a particular bone to pick with those irresponsible folk at HBO for continuing to make TV shows that render me powerless, and nail me to a chair for hours at at a time. Sometimes, I feel literally paralysed with entertainment.

And on that note, let me introduce you to a fine selection of downloadable treats that might just do the same to you.

Rush

• PC (Steam) - £3.14

If you're the kind of twisted individual that demands a concentrated dose of puzzling just to get you out of your slumber pit in the morning, then the brain-breakers at Two Tribes are back to give those spatial awareness glands that necessary tweak.

This time, you are Arrow Man, the dispenser of all things directional, as you lead a clueless army of wandering cubes back to their appropriately coloured lairs.

Your wayward charges roll forth in a straight line, obediently following the direction of any directional arrows that you've placed in their path. If they hit a wall, however, they'll turn right, so placing your limited stock of arrows, directional splitters and moving walkways always has to take that into account.

You'll quickly discover that mistakes are not tolerated, so if they fall off the edge of the grid or bump into another cube en route, you have to start over and rejig your precious tiles until it all clicks and your cuboid army stumbles home happily.

To the uninitiated, seeing the whole show set in motion looks utterly bewildering, like observing a rush hour train concourse on fast forward. But such is the gradual learning curve, you'll find yourself seamlessly adapting to problems that would have conceivably broken your brain mere minutes beforehand.

Once you're onto the medium levels and beyond, you'll be cajoled into smack-talking the level designers and laughing like a drain when it all slots into place, as if you're exacting some strange form of revenge by solving their unseemly riddle. It's that kind of game.

8/10